LIBRARY

The Library of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation is the result of the integration into its structure of all the bodies and institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which were dedicated to international cooperation and worked in different regions. Two of these institutions, whose scope of work and cooperation was limited to very different regions—the Hispano-American world and the Arab world respectively—brought with them two important specialized libraries, of considerable quality and size. These are the Hispanic Library and the Islamic Library, both of them references in their respective specialities, not only in Spain but also abroad.

The AECID Library in located in the Library building, which is behind the Palace, i.e. AECID's main building. Its spacious and luminous facilities are well prepared for visiting and reading, and for meeting the information needs of its users. The building is noteworthy in itself, and it was built to comfortably house the bibliographic collection, with unique holdings.

In its reading rooms hang such original works of art as the Pyramid by Fernando Bellver, and a set of 13 oil paintings, called the Discovery Altarpiece, by Urbano Lugrís González.The Library is equipped with modern technological resources and a third-generation catalogue, the Cisne catalogue, which is a result of the collaboration between AECID and the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), and is accessible online.

Together with these two collections, over the years a third collection, specializing in cooperation, has been formed: the Spanish Cooperation Library, whose holdings can be consulted through the Cisne catalogue.